Warm Winter Night
by diamond-helen
Summary: Hermione arrives home through the snow to the perfect suprise. Gift for Clover Bay


_For the wonderful and talented Clover Bay, a very happy very very belated birthday, sorry this is over two months late!_

_Huge thanks to LoveHGSS for the beta, you're a star._

Hermione walked up the narrow path through the snowy garden, smiling at the snowmen and snow-angels scattered around. She turned her face upward towards the flakes of snow dancing and swirling downward, letting them settle on her cheeks and brush across her dark eyelashes. They tangled in her hair and left shimmering patterns on her dark cloak, melting away to nothing as she walked. The usually green lawn sparkled in the patches of light spilling from the windows in the cottage, the white snow eerily bright in the darkness.

She pushed open the door with a smile, glad to be home at last, out of the cold, no matter how beautiful it was.

She was just about to call out and let Bill know she was home when she heard raised voices, sighing as Molly Weasley's less than happy tones reached her. Hermione knew what Molly would be saying; it was the same thing she'd been saying for the nearly two years she and Bill had been together.

According to Molly, Hermione was a home-wrecking, heart-breaking scarlet woman with no sense of female pride. It didn't matter how many times she was told that Ron and Hermione's break-up was a mutual understanding, that they were better friends than romantically involved, or how happy Ron clearly was with Luna, neither did it matter how often Bill pointed out that he and Hermione had started their relationship after Fleur had left him for someone else. Molly was adamant that Hermione was a troublemaker and that Bill was making a mistake by being with her. It had been a familiar topic of conversation for the first eighteen months they had been together but it had got a lot worse since they moved in together. Apparently the only thing worse than Bill dating her was Bill living with her in sin. Molly had told Bill over and over that if he was going to insist on continuing his ridiculous relationship with her then he should at least have the decency to marry her before moving her in.

Hermione moved softly towards the door of the living room, not wanting to make things worse by bursting in, but felt she should be close in case Bill needed moral support.

"I just wish you would consider the rest of the family, don't you realise the shame you're bringing by living with her without a ring on her finger?"

Bill sighed. "Mum, this is the twenty first century, nobody cares that we're not married, it's not shameful or wrong anymore."

"Fine," Molly huffed, "if that's what you want to think then I won't stop you, but you should have a bit more respect for the way you were raised. Your father and I didn't raise children who shack up with the first harlot who throws herself at them."

Bill's voice was quiet and calm, but Hermione could hear the anger he was keeping in check.

"I have told you not to talk about her like that."

"Bill..." Molly began, but he didn't let her finish.

"No, Mum, I'm sick of this. I won't let you talk to or about her like this anymore. You need to accept that she's the woman I love. And as far as living in sin goes, I was planning on asking her to marry me tonight, which will be ruined if you're here and we're having an argument."

"Oh, Bill! That's wonderful, I had no idea, though I had wondered why the room," she trailed off, leaving Hermione to guess at her meaning. "Well, I'll get out of your way, give Hermione my love."

Hermione stood staring at the door in amazement at how easy it was for Molly's opinions to change as the floo activated. Bill sighed, the sound pulling Hermione from her shocked stillness. However Bill was planning on asking her, she was pretty sure it wouldn't include her eavesdropping on yet another argument with his mum and the following revelation.

Still in a daze, Hermione walked as quietly as possible to the door, picking her cloak up from when she'd tossed it over a chair on the way in. She flung it back on and stepped out into the snow, shivering as the cold air tugged at her once more. She stood still on the step, trying to act as normally as possible, and counted to ten before re-entering the cottage.

She pushed the door open and shook the snow off her cloak before calling out.

"Bill?" she called. "I'm home!"

"Through here."

Hermione crossed the kitchen again, dropping her cloak back onto the same chair. She pushed open the door and stopped.

She gazed around her in wonder. Their cosy, homely living room was transformed. The ceiling, usually white with dark wooden beams, was enchanted as the sky, the moon shimmering amongst a multitude of stars. The floor was grassy and soft, a light frost making it sparkle softly. The room seemed to run on for miles, a lake and mountains where she knew there was really a wall. In the centre of the room was a fire, burning away merrily, while Bill sat and grinned at her from the log he was sat on.

Hermione laughed, tears falling gently down her cheeks as she realised what Bill had recreated. The scene was exactly where they had shared their first kiss almost two years previously, when Bill had been staying with Charlie to get over Fleur's betrayal, and Hermione had been liaising with the reserve's staff as part of her work for the Ministry. A group of them had gone up onto the hillside for a late night picnic, and as the others wandered off, Bill and Hermione had found themselves talking as the fire burnt low. It was long past midnight when Bill had tilted her chin up and kissed her, his lips soft but full of yearning and promises. When Hermione tried to deepen the kiss Bill had pulled away, laughing at her pout. He had told her he intended to take things slow, to prove to everyone, himself included, that she wasn't some sort of rebound. Then he Apparated her back to her cabin, kissed her hand and left. Hermione hadn't known whether to laugh or shout, but settled for smiling gently and dreaming of him.

On their return to England they had grown inseparable, taking things slowly but each realising early on that they had something special. Although their friends and family had been shocked at first, it was quickly clear to all but Molly that they made a perfect couple; he drew her out of her shell, she challenged his intellect, and they healed each other from disastrous past relationships.

Hermione looked in awe at his recreation of their first kiss and walked slowly into the room before she spoke, the conversation she had overheard all but driven from her mind.

"Bill, what?" she murmured.

He chuckled before walking to her and leading her to the fire. He reached into his pocket and dropped to one knee, holding a ring out to her, the diamond glinting in the firelight.

"Hermione, I love you more than I thought it possible to love anyone. You took a broken me and made me more than whole again. I think a part of me knew the night I kissed you on this very spot, well sort of this spot, that you were my happily ever after. Will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?"

She looked at the stars, at the frosty ground, at the fire and at the man who had made her feel alive in a way she never thought she could be and she said the only thing she possibly could.

"Yes."


End file.
